#(sorta.)

It’s really funny, isn’t it? The milk bits. The brief, uproarious milk gsgs; i’ve seen fanart of all of them because all of them are funny: this is deltarunec of course, so analyzing the themes of comedy comes natural. I was talking a bit ago to some friends about what analysis I can even bring to Deltarune, and while i have bigger thoughts to fry… milk is somethjng i feel like i have a grasp on.

K. Round uses milk to refresh their health only after achieving that form. It’s a great joke and an ability that comes from their sudden growth; milk is growth-related, classic bit from cartoons, from ads.

Notably, this milk protects them from violence Susie commits, but doesn’t actually further their ends; it causes the Susie to think her way out of the situation, working around the basic protection milk provides.

This is one of many ralsei plush jokes and is said in reference to the classic post by deleted twitter user frindle_babbin about slamming a webkinz full of milk against a wall; this post is a nostalgic recollection of a habit pwople around the OP see as weird, unpleasant, and mockable, which may tie in with some sort of original existence of Ralsei or a present cringe/splattable state of her.

Lancer… doesn’t really seem to eat much, which may be Susie’s food insecurity and Kris’s eating disorder rubbing off on him. But he can count on his afternoon glass of milk.

To Alphys, the milk is an indicator of her having someone who cares about her. Someone fitting her perfect and flawless ideal, someone she is, in fact, properly caring for, in her life of consistently failing people. She’s… pretty aware that she has an ideal of a cat, not a real cat. But she wants to have someone that she’s doing right by.

And the thing is… she. *is.* taking care of someone, by leaving the milk out. She’s taking care of Susie.

Susie, who Alphys consistently fails; susie, who is taken care of by so few and who wants for so much. Susie who has no idea this IS Alphys leaving the milk, and Alphys has no idea in return; this mutualism can only exist between them if alphys doesn’t know it’s Susie.

And Susie counts on the milk. Counts on it terribly, regards it as a given later, as somrthing she can trust being there!

But…

Hiiiii, Catty Cattenheimer, spoiler of all things, knower of Ralsei, killer of the buzz, the fly in the ointment of Asriel’s perfection, of the Church’s sanctity, of the free milk AND of MewMew all in one.

Susie can’t rely on the milk. Alphys can’t tely on it.

The milk looker, a perpetual bystander, doesn’t give much of a shit about Kris except in how kris harshes the vibe of their enjoyment of the milk. Catty being there does not upset their milk observation, arguments near them do but they’re focused on the milk.

What does upset the Looker?

When the milk is washed away by tears from the sky.

What does this mean? Well, mostly it’s fucking funny!

What does it mean that Sans defaults to milk when he thinks of things his store sells (a convenience store built to resemble the hollow of a community space)?

When the rest of Kris rips out their SOUL in the Holiday house to keep ❤️Kris from the code, which Kris is the one who looks past all the food in the fridge (having eaten one to two meals in the past 36-ish hours) and grabs the chocolate syrup and the milk? Both together?

It’s…not food. They need food, all of these kids need food, but it’s not food. And yet, they have to rely on it. They beeline for it.

I think that milk is, metaphorically, supplementary support. Clubs, little treats, touching grass, SELF-CARE. The things that help out, the things that can be part of routine, but generally make for bad support networks on their own. It’s something that grows your bones, it’s part of a balanced life, it will help… but it cannot save you. It cannot sustain you. And yet it’s a spectacle, something to be enjoyed in abstract by rubberneckers like Milk Looker and those like Catty who probably have milk at home anyhow. Milk supports a growing child, says the advertisement, leaving out every single other food group in the universe.

In other words…

And why did you Tag it as kralsei 🫥 that my friend is what the fandom calls Playersei (a ship so problematic, given the self insert-ish nature of the player, that I can't help but do the excalliburly disgusted soul eater face every time I think about it)

That aside, has your opinion changed on kralsei?

uhh okay. seems a little aggressive but whatevs

long story short I had a theory before chapters 3 & 4 dropped that ralsei was being set up as the love interest of the player through kris, that ralsei was purposefully crafted the way he is to lure the player into falling in love with him, and that ralsei was most likely aware of this. then the size of the game doubled and we learned way more about ralsei’s feelings and motivations (and I realized that toby fox has absolutely no idea what makes his characters keep getting popular) and that theory got tossed out the window. so that art and some other art was based on that idea I had which turned out not to be accurate. consequence of making fanart for a thing that’s still in progress! also I tagged it kralsei because as far as I knew “playersei” didn’t exist in the public consciousness yet + it would still involve kris anyway even if they didn’t want it.

so how are we feelin', crew?